Sunday, November 12, 2017

"The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" is not shocking, unless you've been living on a desert island with no Wi-Fi for the past year.

In this book, 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts, plus a bunch of other people, assess Donald Trump's mental health, and guess what: They find what we have all (all who have not been living on a desert island) known for the past year: the man is unfit for office.

I'm not even recommending that anyone buy this book. Check it out of your local library, like I did, and skim through it, like I did. A careful reading will not be any more informational than a quick look.

In fact, you could just look at the chapter titles to know what each contributor is going to write.

Here, let's do that now:

The introduction reminds us of why shrinks aren't supposed to "diagnose" someone without talking to that person for some time; you can't really judge a person's character from someone else's description. Right? Usually, yes. But the introduction also reminds us that this is a unique case, and there is enough known about Donald Trump from all his interviews, tweets, and, of course, the Access Hollywood recording, where he was caught bragging about how he assaults women.

In Part 1, the first chapter is titled "Unbridled and Extreme Present Hedonism: How the Leader of the Free World Has Proven Time and Again He Is Unfit for Duty." The next chapter, "Pathological Narcissism and Politics: A Lethal Mix" gives us more of the same.

The third chapter isn't written by a mental health professional but by someone who did spend a lot of time with Trump, a year, in fact, writing his so-called autobiography for him: This is Tony Schwartz, whose chapter is titled "I Wrote The Art of the Deal with Donald Trump: His Self-Sabotage Is Rooted in His Past."

And so on.; There are six more chapters detailing Trump's unfitness for the job that less than half of the people of the U.S. thought he could do well.

Part 2, "The Trump Dilemma," gives more of the same: six chapters on what anyone can possibly do to protect our country from this unhinged and dangerous personality.

And Part 3, "The Trump Effect," consists of nine chapters with the same depressing diagnosis, summed up nicely in the last chapter, titled "He's Got the World in His Hands and His Finger on the Trigger: The Twenty-Fifth Amendment Solution."

You'd have to be much more of an optimist than I am to believe that the swamp-creatures of Trump's cabinet would ever make use of the 25th amendment, so I don't understand why anyone is still invoking it.

Anyway....Don't read this book. But get involved in local and state politics so you can help our country start in a new direction as soon as possible.

Contacting Madame L

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We agree on etiquette

Madame L suggested that commenters follow these rules:---Never be mean, snarky, or vulgar.---Express even strong disagreements with politeness and civility.---Greet the day with a song. (Off-line---unless you want to share the chorus with Madame L and her readers)

One commenter has added these suggestions:

My grandma, born in Germany but raised in Kentucky, taught me this:-Work hard - there are no excuses for not.-Work smart - if you think about it as you go you won't waste a lot of time reinventing something.-Be kind - always, to everyone.